Despite the financial crisis, the coffee sector is estimating more than $500 million in foreign exchange this year
The chairman of the Center of Coffee Cooperatives in Honduras, Dagoberto Suazo, noted that coffee consumption has increased almost 3% in the US and Japan, among other countries.
La Tribuna published Suazo’s statements on its website: "A bag of coffee is priced at $130 in New York, which gives producers and those who have grain ready for export a good perspective for the next harvest. For 2010, it is expected that sending of the aromatic to the international market will generate some $600 million."
Technical assistance, research, financing, agricultural health and safety are the keys to competitiveness.
Representatives from various Honduran agricultural sectors discussed the importance of agriculture and how to achieve its full potential. The findings were compiled in an article in La Tribuna of Honduras.
Businessmen and officials agreed that agricultural production is the key to the country's development, stating that "the economic platform of the developed nations was based on agriculture," and they stressed that the country has a high potential for forestation, which can be more profitable than crops: "A hectare of mahogany can produce over $400 thousand, but only after 25 years."
Honduras exported a record amount of coffee, 4.5 million sack (46 kilograms each), during the harvest that started on October 1, 2007.
"We are closing with more than 4.5 million sacks. This is almost 200 thousand sacks more than our projections and earnings are going to be over US$600 million," the president of the Central Coffee Cooperatives (CCC), Dagoberto Suazo, stated.
The recent increase in world coffee prices is expected to provide Honduras with a US$600 million increase this year in export earnings.
Dagoberto Suazo, a coffee industry leader, said that the impact of the increase would be felt in 210 municipalities that depend on coffee for their livelihoods. It follows the inauguration by President Manuel Zelaya in San Pedro Sula of a quality-control center that can provide buyers in the United States and Europe with a certified product.